happening, or of ray ever turning generous and
rewarding you of my own accord for the
sacrifice you have made. I have been to
Doctors' Commons, I have taken out a grant
of administration, I have got the money
legally, I have lodged it safe at my banker's,
and I have never had one kind feeling in my
heart since I was born. That was my
brother's character of me, and he knew more
of my disposition, of course, than anyone
else. Once again, I tell you both, not a
farthing of all that large fortune will ever
return to either of you."

"And once again I tell you," said Leonard,
"that we have no desire to hear what we
know already. It is a relief to my conscience
and to my wife's to have resigned a fortune
which we had no right to possess; and I
speak for her as well as for myself when I
tell you that your attempt to attach an
interested motive to our renunciation of that
money, is an insult to us both which you
ought to have been ashamed to offer."

"That is your opinion, is it?" said Mr.
Treverton. "You, who have lost the money,
speak to me, who have got it, in that
manner, do you? Pray, do you approve of
your husband's treating a rich man who
might make both your fortunes, in that
way? " he inquired, addressing himself
sharply to Rosamond.

"Most assuredly I approve of it," she
answered. "I never agreed with him more
heartily in my life than I agree with him
now."

"O!" said Mr. Treverton. "Then it
seems you care no more for the loss of the
money than he does?"

"He has told you already," said Rosamond,
"that it is as great a relief to my conscience
as to his, to have given it up."

Mr. Treverton carefully placed a thick
stick which he carried with him, upright
between his knees, crossed his hands on the
top of it, rested his chin on them, and, in
that investigating position, stared steadily in
Rosamond's face.

"I rather wish I had brought Shrowl here
with me," he said to himself. "I should like
him to have seen this. It staggers me, and
I rather think it would have staggered him.
Both these people," continued Mr. Treverton,
looking perplexedly from Rosamond to
Leonard, and from Leonard back again to
Rosamond, " are, to all outward appearance,
human beings. They walk on their hind
legs, they express ideas readily by uttering
articulate sounds, they have the usual allowance
of features, and in respect of weight,
height, and size generally, they appear to me
to be mere average human creatures of the
common civilised sort. And yet, there they
sit, taking the loss of a fortune of forty
thousand pounds as easily as Crœsus, King
of Lydia, might have taken the loss of a
halfpenny!"

He rose, put on his hat, tucked the thick
stick under his arm, and advanced a few
steps towards Rosamond.

"I am going now," he said. "Would you
like to shake hands?"

Rosamond turned her back on him
contemptuously.

Mr. Treverton chuckled with an air of
supreme satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Leonard, who sat near the
fireplace, and whose colour was rising angrily
once more, had been feeling for the bell-rope,
and had just succeeded in getting it into his
hand, as Mr. Treverton approached the door.

"Don't ring, Lenny," said Rosamond. "He
is going of his own accord."

Mr. Treverton stepped out into the passage,
then glanced back into the room with an
expression of puzzled curiosity on his face,
as if he was looking into a cage which
contained two animals of a species that he had
never heard of before. "I have seen some
strange sights in my time," he said to
himself. "I have had some queer experience of
this trumpery little planet and of the
creatures who inhabit it—but I never was
staggered yet by any human phenomena, as I
am staggered now by those two." He shut the
door without saying another word, and
Rosamond heard him chuckle to himself again as
he walked away along the passage.

Ten minutes afterwards, the waiter brought
up a sealed letter addressed to Mrs. Frankland.
It had been written, he said, in the
coffee-room of the hotel, by the "person"
who had intruded himself into Mr. and Mrs.
Frankland's presence. After giving it to
the waiter to deliver, he had gone away in a
hurry, swinging his thick stick complacently,
and laughing to himself.

Rosamond opened the letter.

On one side of it was a crossed cheque,
drawn in her name, for Forty Thousand
pounds.

On the other side, were these lines of
explanation:—

Take this. First, because you and your husband
are the only two people I have ever met with who are
not likely to be made rascals by being made rich.
Secondly, because you have told the truth, when letting
it out meant losing money, and keeping it in, saving a
fortune. Thirdly, because you are not the child of the
player-woman. Fourthly, because you can't help
yourself for I shall leave it to you at my death, if
you won't have it now. Good-bye. Don't come and
see me, don't write grateful letters to me, don't invite
me into the country, don't praise my generosity, and,
above all things, d'on't have anything more to do with
Shrowl!

ANDREW TREVERTON.

The first thing Rosamond did, when she
and her husband had a little recovered from
their astonishment, was to disobey the
injunction which forbade her to address
any grateful letters to Mr. Treverton. The
messenger who was sent wich her note to
Bayswater, returned without an answer, and
reported that he had received directions